ArikIturri: An Automatic Question Generator Based on Corpora and NLP Techniques

Abstract

Abstract. Knowledge construction is expensive for Computer Assisted As-sessment. When setting exercise questions, teachers use Test Makers to con-struct Question Banks. The addition of Automatic Generation to assessment applications decreases the time spent on constructing examination papers. In this article, we present ArikIturri, an Automatic Question Generator for Basque language test questions, which is independent from the test assessment applica-tion that uses it. The information source for this question generator consists of linguistically analysed real corpora, represented in XML mark-up language. ArikIturri makes use of NLP tools. The influence of the robustness of those tools and the used corpora is highlighted in the article. We have proved the vi-ability of ArikIturri when constructing fill-in-the-blank, word formation, multi-ple choice, and error correction question types. In the evaluation of this auto-matic generator, we have obtained positive results as regards the generation process and its usefulness.